Once the couple has decided to start a treatment of high technology there is another type of decision that has to be taken care of. In consultation with their doctor, they must think about vitrification and the disposition of their embryos. The Vitrification of embryos has come to be one of the most important developments of the new techniques of assisted reproduction; it allows couples to have significant advantages on their assisted reproduction cycle and to extend their possibilities in fathering a child.
Many women produce more eggs than those that can be transferred in a single cycle. The extra eggs can be inseminated and if these are of good quality, they can be vitrified to be used in the future.
The embryos are preserved by cooling to low sub-zero temperatures one to three days after the insemination in a vitrification solution and kept in special containers in tanks with liquid nitrogen. If the woman does not conceive in that cycle, the vitrified embryos can be used in a new cycle. In order to do this the patient is being carefully monitored with blood tests and ultrasounds; when the uterus of the woman is receptive the embryos are thawed and transferred.
The cycle for transferring thawed embryos is much easier and represents a lower financial cost than a normal IVF/ICSI cycle because the procedures of stimulating, aspiration eggs and fertilization is already performed. For this cycle the patient does not take medicines to stimulate, she only takes medicine to obtain an optimal condition of the uterus.
Additionally, if the couple conceives during the cycle and they wish more children in the future, they can start a new cycle with thawed embryos, with the hope to obtain another pregnancy. There is no physical evidence that children who are born of thawed embryos have had problems at birth, physical defects or intellectual problems in comparison with other children.